Page 22 of Demon Dating Service

This was a mistake. He should get a frozen pizza and call it a night.

And now he was back to getting scurvy.

Stupid melons. Why is adulting so exhausting?

“Do you know how to tell if one is ripe?”

Luke jumped at the sudden voice on his right. He’d been so lost in his wallowing that he’d not even heard someone approach him. He twisted around, expecting the speaker to be one of the grocery workers or even a nosy customer, but it was neither.

It was Matteo.

Holy. Shit.

“You thump it,” Matteo continued, a huge smile on his face.

Luke continued to gawk at him, his brain a useless lump of gray mush filling his skull. Matteo was here. Matteo was talking to him.Smilingat him.

Say something, you idiot! Make some noise! Bark, goddammit!

Before Luke could so much as grunt, Matteo lost his grin, and his beautiful face scrunched up as if he were wincing. “Wow! That sounded a lot better in my head. Now that the words are out, I…wow…that was bad. Did that sound creepy and perv-y?”

“No!” Luke blurted out. His brain gave a tiny cheer at locating the cells that controlled his mouth. Now, to keep from saying anything stupid.

“Are you sure? Because that sounded bad to me.”

“Yes! I m-mean no! I-I mean, it didn’t sound bad to me. I-I was just surprised, that’s all. Lost in thought.” Luke clamped his mouth shut to stop his stammering and applauded his brain for only sounding like a partial idiot instead of a full-blown idiot.

“Okay. Good.” Matteo exhaled loudly, and his grin returned in full force, killing off the few working brain cells Luke had left. “I don’t think we’ve ever been introduced. I’m Matteo Zito.”

“Yes, I know.” The words tumbled out, and all Luke could do was slap his hand over his mouth after the fact. “I mean, I’ve seen you around.”

That was not better. He sounded like a stalker now.

But Matteo continued to grin at him. “I’ve seen you, too. Luke, right?”

“Yeah, Luke Carter,” he breathed, pretty sure he was going to expire on the spot. His body couldn’t take the roller coaster it was on. Yet, if he died right here in the middle of the grocery store, he was okay with it. He was having sort of a conversation with the hottest man he’d ever met, and Matteo was smiling at him. What more could he possibly ask for?

“The guy with the ravens.”

Now he really wanted to die. Of course, that was what Matteo remembered him for. He’d probably heard all the weird rumors and obscene talk.

“Crows, actually.” He corrected Matteo in a mumble and turned his attention back to the long shelf of fruit in front of him, but he didn’t see it. His appetite was gone now. Maybe he should swing by the frozen-food aisle and get a pint of Rocky Road.

Fuck being healthy.

“Oh, shit! Sorry. I didn’t think crows got that big. That’s why I thought they were ravens. They’re bigger than crows, right?”

Luke sneaked a peek at Matteo out of the corner of his eye to find that the man was still grinning at him. He didn’t seem tobe mocking Luke or to be creeped out. If anything, he seemed relaxed and friendly. And, of course, ridiculously sexy. Today, he was wearing a pair of dark jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with a light jacket. His hair was perfectly windblown with some long strands hanging over his forehead. Luke ached to run his fingers through Matteo’s hair and finally discover if it was as soft and silky as it looked. The man could have pulled double duty in shampoo and toothpaste commercials.

“Ravens are typically bigger than crows, but I think the crows hanging out on campus are just well fed. That’s what makes them so big.”

Matteo grunted. “Makes sense. College students are constantly leaving food around for them to scavenge.”

“You…” he started, but the words died on his tongue as met Matteo’s wide and friendly gaze. He didn’t appear to scare Matteo. In fact, he appeared genuinely interested. Now Luke simply had to remember not to inundate him with useless bird knowledge that no one other than himself wanted to know.

“Did you train them?”

“No.” He huffed a little laugh and shook his head. “Crows are smart. They’ve learned to watch out for me. I feed them nuts and other snacks occasionally.” He smiled and searched his mind for something else to talk about when his evil, useless brain was kind enough to call up the last time he’d seen Matteo.